Haze of Self

I am Atlantic fog around iron hulls-
A wall of roiling impossibility.
I am liquid, glacial air
Surrounding him 
To find all his cracks and fill them 
Until he pulls aside the shades 
To beam through my incorporeality.

Shattered, I slide down into his sunshine mouth
To rest and burn away in the molten light.

Life Maze

In this entry, I am going to recount something that happened several months ago, but which is still relevant to my current situation. The last week I was at Point Loma for the year, in the middle of finals and projects and stress, the church on campus offered a prayer walk in their sanctuary. I was stressed, naturally, and the semester had been a very difficult one for me emotionally. Although the fall semester should have been (and was in some ways) more difficult, the reality of some life changes only began to really hit me in the spring of 2011. Thus, I was internally a mess while I tried to hold it all together and make it through the semester. I had just attended an amazing worship service, and God was really drawing me that night.
Despite my massive to-do list, I decided to go through the prayer walk because I knew I needed it. It was the best decision of the whole semester. To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting much. While the quiet ambience of prayer walks helps me focus sometimes, and occasionally leads to epiphanies, I was expecting a fairly mundane amount of revelation. Most of the event produced the expected response, but there was something unexpected in the middle of the floor: a maze. At first glance it looked like a regular maze, but upon closer inspection I realized that it was not intended to make one lose one’s way; only one path led to the center. I stepped onto the pathway.
At first, walking around the maze seemed to be a simple prospect, I merely followed the lines as they curved around the floor. Slowly my focus began to shift, however, and my mind went to all the preoccupations that were troubling me. Things were not going the way I had anticipated, and my goals seemed further than ever from my reach. My mind began to parallel the way my body was moving, and it was only a matter of time before I began to see a connection. I was so close to the center goal at times; it seemed just within my reach. Then a sudden, hair-pin turn would take me away from the direction I thought had been clear. As I slowly traversed the length of what felt an eternity of maze, I could feel the Holy Spirit saying, “Don’t you see? You’re sitting in a turn staring at the goal without taking the steps necessary to eventually reach it. You are stagnating.” And I was. If I never let life’s current carry me further along its path, I would become fetid like putrid, rancid water, never making any progress.
When I left the church, I felt refreshed, and the summer has begun with a much lightened spirit. The turns of life are still difficult to take, but I have been reminded rather firmly of reality. I will not so easily be caught in the same place of stagnation, and am looking forward to whatever life brings, knowing I will have a loyal guide along the way.